I put winter away around this time each year. No matter the actual weather – the Mets recently got snowed out in Denver where the temperature reached 19 degrees at game time – I follow a ritual that signifies the seasonal change, and much more, for me.
I have done this for at least two decades – maybe more. Around that time I began wearing a scarf every day. Again, no matter the actual weather. I do not consider myself fashionable in any way, but these accessories add just a bit of zip to an otherwise uninspired wardrobe. I wear them in a distinctive twisted knot around my neck, draping down toward my meager cleavage, and they double as wraps if I feel chilled inside. Back in the day when we watched movies and gathered for other reasons inside, they mediated insufficient heating or overenthusiastic air-conditioning.
I have what some might consider too many – in a range of colors and patterns that complete any bland outfit my closet might throw at me. They have become like a seatbelt; I feel off if I don’t have one on. And, they make me feel just a little special when I go out. Or when I used to go out.
Ann, who I worked with in Los Angeles in the mid-eighties, wore scarves every day too. We women all wore the requisite staid “power suits” back then, with shoulder pads to rival any NFL linebacker’s. But Ann always adorned her variation of the uniform with a scarf. Hers were silk squares, with floral or equestrian themes. They looked like Hermes, but likely came from Talbots. She wore them with a simple knot at her breastbone; the folded V draped down her back. I thought her so elegant; so evolved. I never felt (nor do I now ever feel) very put together, and I admired and envied her panache. I do not know if the image of Ann’s sophistication served as a catalyst to my own habit; I hope she would be flattered if so.
I have a winter and a summer collection, and there is neither reason nor room for them to coexist in my closet, so I ritually change them out at six-month intervals. The semiannual changing of the guard entails taking down all the ending season’s scarves and dumping them on the floor into a pile that RomeoTheCat thinks of as his personal feline playground – as did his predecessors Shakespeare the orange tabby and Cleopatra the tuxedo cat. I refold them carefully (they’re rolled for easier viewing and removal/replacement on the shelf) and weed out those I’ve not worn at all. Always reluctant to let any of them go, I remind myself that if I eliminate one, I may replace it with a new arrival next year. The winter ones are soft and cozy, the summer ones gossamer and whimsical.
More importantly, as I sit on my bedroom floor and sort through the cold-weather ones and bring out their warm-weather counterparts, I touch memories in each. I recall the wedding I attended in England’s Lake District as I roll up the two nearly sheer ones covered with cartoonish sheep. I couldn’t decide between the lime green and the more sensible and neutral beige/black/tan one, so I splurged and bought both. For a grand total of ten pounds sterling. So many came from charity shops in Stratford Upon Avon and Cambridge – Oxfam, British Heart Association, Air Ambulance. I cherished the ability to bring such portable and wearable remembrances of my time there home. Some were gifts from my sister (from Cambodia) or my good friend Liz (from Peru); I love the love in which they wrap me. Several feature Sanskrit writing and Hindu gods; when I need obstacles removed, I wear Ganesh. I bought a skull-covered sky blue one on a trip that my sister, mother, and I took to New Orleans for her 75th birthday. We ate and drank our way through the Latin Quarter; I can still see my mom festooned in Mardi Gras beads and a big smile, which is a much happier way to remember her than the last few days we spent with her in the hospital before she died.
Those with special meaning never go to Goodwill; I’d keep them whether or not I ever wear them again. When I put winter away each year, I take summer out, and warm myself with the stories each piece of fabric tells. Maybe it’s not so much imitation of a long-ago work colleague that keeps me wearing them, but more that the fabric wraps me in a tangible touch of otherwise ephemeral, intangible memories.
Love this. Meaning accumulates in different ways for all of us.